‘Unusual and worrying’: Opposition on delay and alleged discrepancy in EC’s voter turnout data

The Opposition on Tuesday questioned the Election Commission for the delay in releasing the final voter turnout data for the first two phases of the Lok Sabha polls and the alleged discrepancy in the figures as compared to what was reported on the voting days.

While the first phase of the parliamentary election recorded a turnout of 66.14%, the second phase recorded a figure of 66.71%, the poll panel said on Tuesday. However, the panel did not release the total number of voters in each constituency.

The final figures are substantially higher than the provisional polling estimates for the two phases released by the Election Commission earlier.

The data was released after more than 10 days of the first phase and four days after the second phase of polling.

Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien on Tuesday questioned the increase of 5.75% in the final voter turnout figures for the second phase, as compared to the real time figures released by the poll body four days ago.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury observed that the figures released for this year’s elections are “substantially, not marginally as is normal, higher than the initial figures”.

“But why are the absolute numbers of voters in each parliamentary constituency not put out? Percentages are meaningless unless this figure is...

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